Carrots in His Sleep
by Xrai
Summary: Ianto talks in his sleep. About archives and pterodactyls and carrots but never to Jack. Until tonight.  Jack/Ianto


**Carrots in His Sleep**

"Stop that."

"No really, Jack, stop it."

"Don't wanna."

Jack slowly opened his eyes. It was dark and he had to blink several times before he could make out the fuzzy grey contours of his tiny room under the office.

"Please, not the carrots."

The narrow bed creaked as he turned around. It was difficult task, considering he was still half asleep and lying at the very edge of the bed. Not to mention the Welshman who was squished between Jack and the wall, and who was currently holding a rather animated argument with his pillow. Which was apparently also named "Jack".

"I'm warning you, Jack, I'll put you on decaf."

The real Jack cautiously pushed himself up on one elbow and studied his lover. He knew Ianto talked in his sleep. According to the younger man, he'd done so since he'd been a child. It had surprised Jack the first night they'd slept together, when Ianto had woken him by muttering the lyrics of a song he didn't recognize. When confronted about it the next morning, Ianto had been highly apologetic and offered to return to his flat after sex instead of stay with him. But Jack had turned down that offer and kissed the startled young man on the cheek.

He'd missed the young man's voice during Ianto's suspension after the discovery of Lisa in the basement. But at least he knew now who Ianto sometimes argued with at night, or why he had begged Jack to forgive him.

During the Year That Never Was, Jack kept himself sane by imagining his team. In his head Gwen hugged him, Owen snarked and Tosh drew plans to defeat the Master. And when he dozed off fitfully during the hours when the Master was too busy to play with "the freak", Ianto would talk to him in his head, mumbling randomly about the coffee, Myfanwy, or the fact that Owen had tried to charge his alcohol expenditure to Torchwood accounts.

When he'd come back and after the whole fiasco with John Hart, the team retreated to a hotel to avoid their past selves. Jack had knocked on Ianto's door and asked to be let in. Ianto had been reluctant to do so at first, but in the end they'd spent their first night back together wrapped in each other's arms (in their underwear. Ianto had been adamant that they not have sex then and there, and Jack, rather surprisingly, found himself not quite into the whole idea either.) Ianto had fallen asleep first and Jack found himself drifting off into his own slumber with his name murmured like a mantra into his ear.

For all the months they been sleeping together, Jack had heard Ianto argue with his sister, with his parents, with people named Dylan, Cadi and Sara. He'd recited the names of alien artefacts in the archive from _E_, _J_, _I_, _O_ and _T_ to _V_. He'd mumbled lyrics from Tom Jones to Michael Jackson to musicals (Jack had found himself singing along to "Memory"). Jack could have sworn he'd once heard Ianto hum Glenn Miller. He swore sometimes too, in Welsh. And there'd been that time when he'd spoken about a list. (Jack had listened eagerly to Ianto go on and on about the list until his lover complained about groceries. It got decidedly less interesting after that.)

But Ianto had never talked to Jack in his sleep. Murmured his name yes. Moaned it once or twice too; Jack hadn't minded waking up to that and wished Ianto got those dreams or whatever made him say his name like that more often. But he'd never held a conversation with Jack in his sleep.

However, it was quite clear that he was doing that now and that it concerned a pretty stubborn Jack and a carrot. And Jack could only imagine what the other Jack could possibly be doing with a carrot. (It was quite a list.)

"If I find one slice in it–!"

It could be unnerving, sometimes, to see Ianto, eyes closed and relaxed, so deep in sleep, have a conversation like he was wide awake.

"I am _not_ having carrots in the soup."

Oh, so it wasn't _that_ kind of dream.

"You know how much I hate carrots."


End file.
